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The value of Tad

tante

Club Member
Club Member
I know there is some contention around Tad and his team's performance the past few years. I just wanted to show that Tad is outperforming his peers in conference, when you weigh those wins against those wins against head coaching salary, recruiting expenses, and totals expenses (head coaching salary + recruiting expense + operational expenses).

Where did the data come from
wins: I used a 3 year average for wins totals and includes both conference and outside tournaments.
coaching salary: The coaching salary was pulled from this link at USA today (https://sports.usatoday.com/ncaa/salaries/mens-basketball/coach/) which has 2019 coach compensation. I made estimates for both USC ($2,500,000) and Stanford ($1,700,000).
expenses: The expense data comes from EADA here (https://ope.ed.gov/athletics/#/). The numbers are from 2017, but I am assuming that it is generally linear and a team won't go from 10 to 5th in conference.

The data is not perfect and we should be using a 3 or 5 year average across all of our data, but it is good enough to prove our point.



salary.PNG
The first thing to notice is Colorado is above the trend line, These charts are used more for descriptive analysis and not statistical analysis, so just use them to see how we related to other teams. So we see that we are in the bottom half of the conference in terms of Salary, but 6th overall in 3 year win average.

recruiting.PNG

This chart alone should show you that our recruiting budget is an absolute joke and we are winning in spite of spending the lowest amount of any team in conference in recruiting. I can also tell you this is going to get worse now that we are paying Mac so much money to not coach our team anymore.

total.PNG

And finally this is the combination of coaching salary, recruiting expenses, and operational expenses against wins. We are on the right side of the trend line again.

So what does all this mean. Tad is a great CEO of the basketball program. He is winning against his peer with less money in his budget and in his pocket. I would like to see two things happen before there is any talk of firing Tad. The first is give him a recruiting budget increase. We are about 22% lower then the #11 team in conference. We have a lot of team at right around the million dollar mark in recruiting budget and we are sitting under $800,000. Let move this to the average at $1.2 million and see how he does. The second thing is I want to increase his salary and increase the salary of his coaching pool. The average salary in conference is $2.2 million. I think we need to move him there and then increase the assistant coaching salary as well, which may in turn may mean higher quality assistant coaches.

All in, I think an investment of less than $1.5 million a year in recruiting and coaching would have a huge impact on the basketball program.
 
I know there is some contention around Tad and his team's performance the past few years. I just wanted to show that Tad is outperforming his peers in conference, when you weigh those wins against those wins against head coaching salary, recruiting expenses, and totals expenses (head coaching salary + recruiting expense + operational expenses).

Where did the data come from
wins: I used a 3 year average for wins totals and includes both conference and outside tournaments.
coaching salary: The coaching salary was pulled from this link at USA today (https://sports.usatoday.com/ncaa/salaries/mens-basketball/coach/) which has 2019 coach compensation. I made estimates for both USC ($2,500,000) and Stanford ($1,700,000).
expenses: The expense data comes from EADA here (https://ope.ed.gov/athletics/#/). The numbers are from 2017, but I am assuming that it is generally linear and a team won't go from 10 to 5th in conference.

The data is not perfect and we should be using a 3 or 5 year average across all of our data, but it is good enough to prove our point.



View attachment 29333
The first thing to notice is Colorado is above the trend line, These charts are used more for descriptive analysis and not statistical analysis, so just use them to see how we related to other teams. So we see that we are in the bottom half of the conference in terms of Salary, but 6th overall in 3 year win average.

View attachment 29334

This chart alone should show you that our recruiting budget is an absolute joke and we are winning in spite of spending the lowest amount of any team in conference in recruiting. I can also tell you this is going to get worse now that we are paying Mac so much money to not coach our team anymore.

View attachment 29335

And finally this is the combination of coaching salary, recruiting expenses, and operational expenses against wins. We are on the right side of the trend line again.

So what does all this mean. Tad is a great CEO of the basketball program. He is winning against his peer with less money in his budget and in his pocket. I would like to see two things happen before there is any talk of firing Tad. The first is give him a recruiting budget increase. We are about 22% lower then the #11 team in conference. We have a lot of team at right around the million dollar mark in recruiting budget and we are sitting under $800,000. Let move this to the average at $1.2 million and see how he does. The second thing is I want to increase his salary and increase the salary of his coaching pool. The average salary in conference is $2.2 million. I think we need to move him there and then increase the assistant coaching salary as well, which may in turn may mean higher quality assistant coaches.

All in, I think an investment of less than $1.5 million a year in recruiting and coaching would have a huge impact on the basketball program.
 
I know there is some contention around Tad and his team's performance the past few years. I just wanted to show that Tad is outperforming his peers in conference, when you weigh those wins against those wins against head coaching salary, recruiting expenses, and totals expenses (head coaching salary + recruiting expense + operational expenses).

Where did the data come from
wins: I used a 3 year average for wins totals and includes both conference and outside tournaments.
coaching salary: The coaching salary was pulled from this link at USA today (https://sports.usatoday.com/ncaa/salaries/mens-basketball/coach/) which has 2019 coach compensation. I made estimates for both USC ($2,500,000) and Stanford ($1,700,000).
expenses: The expense data comes from EADA here (https://ope.ed.gov/athletics/#/). The numbers are from 2017, but I am assuming that it is generally linear and a team won't go from 10 to 5th in conference.

The data is not perfect and we should be using a 3 or 5 year average across all of our data, but it is good enough to prove our point.



View attachment 29333
The first thing to notice is Colorado is above the trend line, These charts are used more for descriptive analysis and not statistical analysis, so just use them to see how we related to other teams. So we see that we are in the bottom half of the conference in terms of Salary, but 6th overall in 3 year win average.

View attachment 29334

This chart alone should show you that our recruiting budget is an absolute joke and we are winning in spite of spending the lowest amount of any team in conference in recruiting. I can also tell you this is going to get worse now that we are paying Mac so much money to not coach our team anymore.

View attachment 29335

And finally this is the combination of coaching salary, recruiting expenses, and operational expenses against wins. We are on the right side of the trend line again.

So what does all this mean. Tad is a great CEO of the basketball program. He is winning against his peer with less money in his budget and in his pocket. I would like to see two things happen before there is any talk of firing Tad. The first is give him a recruiting budget increase. We are about 22% lower then the #11 team in conference. We have a lot of team at right around the million dollar mark in recruiting budget and we are sitting under $800,000. Let move this to the average at $1.2 million and see how he does. The second thing is I want to increase his salary and increase the salary of his coaching pool. The average salary in conference is $2.2 million. I think we need to move him there and then increase the assistant coaching salary as well, which may in turn may mean higher quality assistant coaches.

All in, I think an investment of less than $1.5 million a year in recruiting and coaching would have a huge impact on the basketball program.

Can you send this and your recommendations to RG?
 
Nice analysis. I would further contend that Colorado needs a larger recruiting budget relative to other schools simply because of travel that’s required on top of what you note.

Any idea what would happen if the average wins was weighted by some strength of schedule metric?

I.e., this past season included a pretty soft out of conference schedule. Would the rankings on each plot change significantly if you account for that?
 
I know there is some contention around Tad and his team's performance the past few years. I just wanted to show that Tad is outperforming his peers in conference, when you weigh those wins against those wins against head coaching salary, recruiting expenses, and totals expenses (head coaching salary + recruiting expense + operational expenses).

Where did the data come from
wins: I used a 3 year average for wins totals and includes both conference and outside tournaments.
coaching salary: The coaching salary was pulled from this link at USA today (https://sports.usatoday.com/ncaa/salaries/mens-basketball/coach/) which has 2019 coach compensation. I made estimates for both USC ($2,500,000) and Stanford ($1,700,000).
expenses: The expense data comes from EADA here (https://ope.ed.gov/athletics/#/). The numbers are from 2017, but I am assuming that it is generally linear and a team won't go from 10 to 5th in conference.

The data is not perfect and we should be using a 3 or 5 year average across all of our data, but it is good enough to prove our point.



View attachment 29333
The first thing to notice is Colorado is above the trend line, These charts are used more for descriptive analysis and not statistical analysis, so just use them to see how we related to other teams. So we see that we are in the bottom half of the conference in terms of Salary, but 6th overall in 3 year win average.

View attachment 29334

This chart alone should show you that our recruiting budget is an absolute joke and we are winning in spite of spending the lowest amount of any team in conference in recruiting. I can also tell you this is going to get worse now that we are paying Mac so much money to not coach our team anymore.

View attachment 29335

And finally this is the combination of coaching salary, recruiting expenses, and operational expenses against wins. We are on the right side of the trend line again.

So what does all this mean. Tad is a great CEO of the basketball program. He is winning against his peer with less money in his budget and in his pocket. I would like to see two things happen before there is any talk of firing Tad. The first is give him a recruiting budget increase. We are about 22% lower then the #11 team in conference. We have a lot of team at right around the million dollar mark in recruiting budget and we are sitting under $800,000. Let move this to the average at $1.2 million and see how he does. The second thing is I want to increase his salary and increase the salary of his coaching pool. The average salary in conference is $2.2 million. I think we need to move him there and then increase the assistant coaching salary as well, which may in turn may mean higher quality assistant coaches.

All in, I think an investment of less than $1.5 million a year in recruiting and coaching would have a huge impact on the basketball program.
Three words: out ****ing standing.
 
Nice analysis. I would further contend that Colorado needs a larger recruiting budget relative to other schools simply because of travel that’s required on top of what you note.

Any idea what would happen if the average wins was weighted by some strength of schedule metric?

I.e., this past season included a pretty soft out of conference schedule. Would the rankings on each plot change significantly if you account for that?

Good point I'll run total investment, which is what I now call head coach salary + recruiting expenses + op expenses against a 3 year average RPI, but I'm guessing it will be very similar to total wins
 
Great analysis buddy. I think Tad is a victim of his own success cuz what he’s done is without parallel in the history of CU MBB.
 
Tante and Goose you guys are great reads, thank you. Tad is really under appreciated, I have been guilty of this myself. Info like this reminds me of how passion for the program can easily cover my eyes to the truths within the entire AD at this time.
 
More information on Institutional Support for bball can be found in the CU report to the NCAA.
https://cubuffs.com/documents/2019/1/15//MFRS_FINAL_FY18.pdf?id=12235
Some fun numbers from 2018:

Funds provided by the School to the programs according to these parameters:
bball support 1.png
  • Football: 548k
  • Skiing: 50k;
  • Lacrosse (ladies only): 547k;
  • CC/Track (combined men and women): 1 million
  • Basketball: 20k.

Direct Contributions/donations received and used by programs in 2018:
  • Football: 5.5 million
  • Bball: 1.1 million
  • Womens bball: 44k.
  • Every other program: between 6 to 36k.

recruiting budget:
  • Football: 635k;
  • bball: 120k;
Profit for AD:
  • Football: $21,386,232
  • Basketball: $2,879,238
Conclusion: Bball under Tad is making the AD a lot of money and there is room for significant bumps in investment... while STILL being profitable for the AD. Like... doubling the recruiting budget. Bball, despite being a far smaller program than football, gets a lot of donations in proportion to its size.

(side note: those recruiting expenses for both fball and bball seem... low).
 
More information on Institutional Support for bball can be found in the CU report to the NCAA.
https://cubuffs.com/documents/2019/1/15//MFRS_FINAL_FY18.pdf?id=12235
Some fun numbers from 2018:

Funds provided by the School to the programs according to these parameters:
View attachment 29352
  • Football: 548k
  • Skiing: 50k;
  • Lacrosse (ladies only): 547k;
  • CC/Track (combined men and women): 1 million
  • Basketball: 20k.

Direct Contributions/donations received and used by programs in 2018:
  • Football: 5.5 million
  • Bball: 1.1 million
  • Womens bball: 44k.
  • Every other program: between 6 to 36k.

recruiting budget:
  • Football: 635k;
  • bball: 120k;
Profit for AD:
  • Football: $21,386,232
  • Basketball: $2,879,238
Conclusion: Bball under Tad is making the AD a lot of money and there is room for significant bumps in investment... while STILL being profitable for the AD. Like... doubling the recruiting budget. Bball, despite being a far smaller program than football, gets a lot of donations in proportion to its size.

(side note: those recruiting expenses for both fball and bball seem... low).
I assume the basketball profit is men’s only?
 
Just so I'm understanding the first graph correctly, Krystowiak is not only the highest paid coach in the conference, but he's making almost $1 million more than Altman?
 
Just so I'm understanding the first graph correctly, Krystowiak is not only the highest paid coach in the conference, but he's making almost $1 million more than Altman?
The Oregon coach gets a lot on the side in his Nike endorsement contract that isn’t part of his salary. I’m thinking that isn’t reflected in the numbers we see.
 
As Adam said in his latest Buffstampede podcast: Tad is a victim of his own success.

I understand this phrase and its notion, but it doesn’t make sense.

People are hired to do a job. If they demonstrate that they can do the job well enough/reach a certain level of achievement, it is not unreasonable for their employer to demand that the employee perform up to that standard.

There aren’t any victims. The coach is hired to win. He’s demonstrated that consistently going to the NCAA tournament is possible at Colorado. If the employee regresses, his message becomes stale, or he’s no longer good enough to reach the previously established benchmarks, then the employee deserves criticism.

There’s no victimization. It is black and white. Can you or can you not do the job at the level needed? That’s the only question. Everything else is excuse making.
 
I understand this phrase and its notion, but it doesn’t make sense.

People are hired to do a job. If they demonstrate that they can do the job well enough/reach a certain level of achievement, it is not unreasonable for their employer to demand that the employee perform up to that standard.

There aren’t any victims. The coach is hired to win. He’s demonstrated that consistently going to the NCAA tournament is possible at Colorado. If the employee regresses, his message becomes stale, or he’s no longer good enough to reach the previously established benchmarks, then the employee deserves criticism.

There’s no victimization. It is black and white. Can you or can you not do the job at the level needed? That’s the only question. Everything else is excuse making.
Exactly
 
I understand this phrase and its notion, but it doesn’t make sense.

People are hired to do a job. If they demonstrate that they can do the job well enough/reach a certain level of achievement, it is not unreasonable for their employer to demand that the employee perform up to that standard.

There aren’t any victims. The coach is hired to win. He’s demonstrated that consistently going to the NCAA tournament is possible at Colorado. If the employee regresses, his message becomes stale, or he’s no longer good enough to reach the previously established benchmarks, then the employee deserves criticism.

There’s no victimization. It is black and white. Can you or can you not do the job at the level needed? That’s the only question. Everything else is excuse making.


You know what? You guys are right. Michigan State pays Tom Izzo more than TWICE as much as CU pays their coach and izzo proved almost 20 years ago that he could win a title at MSU. Since he hasn’t done it since then they should dump him.
 
I understand this phrase and its notion, but it doesn’t make sense.

People are hired to do a job. If they demonstrate that they can do the job well enough/reach a certain level of achievement, it is not unreasonable for their employer to demand that the employee perform up to that standard.

There aren’t any victims. The coach is hired to win. He’s demonstrated that consistently going to the NCAA tournament is possible at Colorado. If the employee regresses, his message becomes stale, or he’s no longer good enough to reach the previously established benchmarks, then the employee deserves criticism.

There’s no victimization. It is black and white. Can you or can you not do the job at the level needed? That’s the only question. Everything else is excuse making.
There is something to it, though. Success revised expectations. For example, it is likely that Texas Tech will never win another Big 12 regular season title or make another Final Four. If their coach stays and never achieves this sort of season again — even missing the Dance a couple years in a row — the natives will get restless and start posting a lot of “Fire Beard” stuff on their message boards and twitter even though he’s continuing to our-perform the standards of the program he was hired into.
 
There is something to it, though. Success revised expectations. For example, it is likely that Texas Tech will never win another Big 12 regular season title or make another Final Four. If their coach stays and never achieves this sort of season again — even missing the Dance a couple years in a row — the natives will get restless and start posting a lot of “Fire Beard” stuff on their message boards and twitter even though he’s continuing to our-perform the standards of the program he was hired into.

Victims are on the receiving end of something they don’t deserve.

A coach signs up for highs and lows. There’s no victim.
 
You know what? You guys are right. Michigan State pays Tom Izzo more than TWICE as much as CU pays their coach and izzo proved almost 20 years ago that he could win a title at MSU. Since he hasn’t done it since then they should dump him.

That’s a terrible reading of my argument and you know it. There’s a major difference between winning/consistently being in the final four and not even making the tournament for three years.
 
Who is going to walk into the the lowest recruiting budget in the conference and a bottom four conference paycheck and deliver NCAA tournament appearances over 50% of the time?
 
You know what? You guys are right. Michigan State pays Tom Izzo more than TWICE as much as CU pays their coach and izzo proved almost 20 years ago that he could win a title at MSU. Since he hasn’t done it since then they should dump him.

So because Izzo gets paid twice what Tad does (and his program has a much higher budget as well) being mediocre is a wonderful thing. Lets just forget about winning anything because we can't be Michigan State or Duke or one of the big budget bluebloods.

Figure it out, nobody is saying that Tad should have his team in the final four on a frequent basis or frankly even sometimes.

What we are saying is look at the record. Tad proved in his first six years that CU can compete for and earn tourney berths by going 4 times (and going deep in the NIT in one of the years they didn't make the tourney.

He himself has proven that the "Poor Colorado, they just don't have what it takes to win anything so they should just be happy to participate" mentality is a giant ball of crap.

In his last three years we have 0 (zero, ziltch, nada) trips to the NCAA tourney, even as the entire conference is down. We have gone 8-10, 8-10, 10-8 in a conference full of weak teams. The only reason the overall record has been over .500 is because we have been loading up on creampuffs out of conference.

Understand, I want Tad to succeed, I want him to be the HC at CU. He is a good man who represents the university in a quality manner and truly cares for the kids who play for him.

Bottom line though is that it is a results oriented business. Nobody expects CU to be one of the nations prime time programs. What we do expect and should expect is that the program performs at a level comparable to what it has shown it can perform at.

Winning matters. Basketball is a revenue sport, it is expected to turn a profit. It will never compare to football in generating a profit but with Title IX and a full department of non-revenue sports profit from men's basketball matters and when the team is mediocre that profit does not meet expectations.

In many areas people have been fired or replaced because they did not meet the standard which they set earlier in their careers. Many of these people have been very good people who in setting that standard far exceeded their predecessors but in the end by failing to meet their own standard found themselves gone.
 
That’s a terrible reading of my argument and you know it. There’s a major difference between winning/consistently being in the final four and not even making the tournament for three years.

So because Izzo gets paid twice what Tad does (and his program has a much higher budget as well) being mediocre is a wonderful thing. Lets just forget about winning anything because we can't be Michigan State or Duke or one of the big budget bluebloods.

Figure it out, nobody is saying that Tad should have his team in the final four on a frequent basis or frankly even sometimes.

What we are saying is look at the record. Tad proved in his first six years that CU can compete for and earn tourney berths by going 4 times (and going deep in the NIT in one of the years they didn't make the tourney.

He himself has proven that the "Poor Colorado, they just don't have what it takes to win anything so they should just be happy to participate" mentality is a giant ball of crap.

In his last three years we have 0 (zero, ziltch, nada) trips to the NCAA tourney, even as the entire conference is down. We have gone 8-10, 8-10, 10-8 in a conference full of weak teams. The only reason the overall record has been over .500 is because we have been loading up on creampuffs out of conference.

Understand, I want Tad to succeed, I want him to be the HC at CU. He is a good man who represents the university in a quality manner and truly cares for the kids who play for him.

Bottom line though is that it is a results oriented business. Nobody expects CU to be one of the nations prime time programs. What we do expect and should expect is that the program performs at a level comparable to what it has shown it can perform at.

Winning matters. Basketball is a revenue sport, it is expected to turn a profit. It will never compare to football in generating a profit but with Title IX and a full department of non-revenue sports profit from men's basketball matters and when the team is mediocre that profit does not meet expectations.

In many areas people have been fired or replaced because they did not meet the standard which they set earlier in their careers. Many of these people have been very good people who in setting that standard far exceeded their predecessors but in the end by failing to meet their own standard found themselves gone.

Again- this is stupid. CU gets what they pay for. Tad is (at best, since some schools do not disclose) 59th out of 347 D1 Coaches in terms of salary. As @tante laboriously detailed, CU also spends far less than peers on recruiting as well, and my guess would be that the facilities at CU Events Center are below or well below comparison with peers.

Tad has made the tournament 4 times out of 9 seasons- 44.4% of the time. There are exactly 32 coaches who have made the tournament more times at their current school. There are 56 coaches who have made the tournament on a more frequent basis than Tad for their current schools. There are 22 coaches who have been at their current school as long as Tad and have made the tournament more frequently. They are, as you might suspect, names like Few, Self, Williams, Boeheim, Calipari, Huggins, Miller, etc.

All of those guys make at last 1.5X what Tad does, and Tante's analysis makes me pretty comfortable that they probably spend a hell of a lot more on their program than CU does.

Despite being 9th out of 12 in P12 salaries and DEAD ****ING LAST in the P12 in recruiting spend, Tad has made the tournament more than all but 4 P12 coaches and more frequently than all but 5.

If you have a problem with how many wins CU gets on an annual basis, take it up with Rick George and not Tad Boyle.
 
Again- this is stupid. CU gets what they pay for. Tad is (at best, since some schools do not disclose) 59th out of 347 D1 Coaches in terms of salary. As @tante laboriously detailed, CU also spends far less than peers on recruiting as well, and my guess would be that the facilities at CU Events Center are below or well below comparison with peers.

Tad has made the tournament 4 times out of 9 seasons- 44.4% of the time. There are exactly 32 coaches who have made the tournament more times at their current school. There are 56 coaches who have made the tournament on a more frequent basis than Tad for their current schools. There are 22 coaches who have been at their current school as long as Tad and have made the tournament more frequently. They are, as you might suspect, names like Few, Self, Williams, Boeheim, Calipari, Huggins, Miller, etc.

All of those guys make at last 1.5X what Tad does, and Tante's analysis makes me pretty comfortable that they probably spend a hell of a lot more on their program than CU does.

Despite being 9th out of 12 in P12 salaries and DEAD ****ING LAST in the P12 in recruiting spend, Tad has made the tournament more than all but 4 P12 coaches and more frequently than all but 5.

If you have a problem with how many wins CU gets on an annual basis, take it up with Rick George and not Tad Boyle.

This isn't 5 years ago. Results matter right now. If you don't like what he is paid take it up with Rick George but don't try to tell me that a program that is mediocre now is the best we can do and we should be happy to have it. No, we have seen that we can qualify for the tourney. 3 straight years, 4 out of 5 without a tourney appearance is below standard. What we did 5 years ago is only significant in setting a standard to aim for, not to justify being a lesser program than we can and should be.
 
Bottom line is Tad cant sell the program to blue chip recruits...its the Jimmy and Joes....hes whiffed on the difference makers...so he gets agerage to a bit above average recruits..who typically stay three to four years because they are not NBA prospects. He plays creampuffs in OOC..finishes around .500 in conf every year.. Hes a decent coach who is average at best in recruiting...in a league that is pretty bad right now.
 
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